The Hogan Beat

Larry Hogan recently touted his lack of regrets as he exits the Maryland governorship; we've got a few.

Though statewide organizing is still in its infancy, Maryland’s DSA formations have been conferring regularly about how to leverage our numbers and apply our analysis to the so-called Blue state’s political realities.

How equitably can federal funds be released for infrastructure? It depends on how skilled local and state governments are at scooping up and managing those funds.

A former progressive legislator’s lens on the action at the 2021 session of the Maryland General Assembly: a litany of missed opportunities and unfinished business.

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan has failed to meet the challenge of the COVID-19 virus in a state battered by skyrocketing unemployment.

Will Gov. Larry Hogan, like Trump, make Maryland taxpayers hostages to a foreign (global capitalist) power?

We look at the list of issues that many analysts say will top the agenda of this 2020 General Assembly session, and we get the itchy feeling that one sentence could clear away some of the confusion.

Mckayla Wilkes has been endorsed by MDC DSA membership in her run for the Democratic nomination for Maryland’s 5th Congressional District. The primary is April 28, 2020. The incumbent: Steny Hoyer.

The Assembly passed a bill creating a panel to examine and if necessarily lower prescription drug prices in Maryland. The GOP governor, whose veto of the bill was overriden, has refused to release the funds appropriated, kicking off a nasty fight.

Hogan, as Treasurer Nancy Kopp acutely suggests, is becoming rapidly more Trump-like as he wallows in second-term freedom, acting out the Maryland equivalent of the Obama-obsessed Trump’s attempt to erase the work of his predecessor, in Hogan’s case Democrat Martin O’Malley.

Sine Die was, to say the least, complicated by the death of House of Delegates Chair Mike Busch the weekend before, followed by a dismal and unseemly contest to succeed him.

The ostensibly sunny-day Hogan budget puts a heavy load on the General Assembly to adapt it to what Marylanders actually need.

On February 14 an advocacy transportation group denounced a quiet move by Hogan’s ethically compromised transportation agency (MDOT) to formally drop all mass transit options from his big plan to add toll lanes to the I-495 Beltway and to I-270.

As political Maryland swings into another General Assembly session where Democrats face a second-term GOP governor, the shape of things political in a divided state is sketched by a variety of examples.

In Places Journal, Alex MacGillis writes about the legacy of highway-fueled white flight in Baltimore, and the sheer resentment suburban residents feel toward transit serving the city (‘loot train’).

Woody Woodruff analyzes the duplicitous stealth-centrist posture of GOP Gov. Larry Hogan as he seeks a second term in November – and the conservative and pro-corporate administration he leads.

Ben Jealous’s primary victory puts Maryland within striking distance of the progressive governor Maryland deserves and needs.

A useful intercity rail system is in reach for Maryland if it defers the maglev and hyperloop dreams in favor of the needs of today's travelers.

Democrats hone their strategy for sending Governor Larry Hogan back to private life while Hogan postures for his base.

Hogan's highway plan encumbers an enormous cost and short state revenues.

In this year before the 2018 gubernatorial election -- when Maryland Democrats will pull out all the stops to oust Republican Governor Larry Hogan -- legislation and progressive activism are showing many convergences.

As Metro DC DSA's reach expands - policywise - into suburban Maryland, left allies offer ample opportunities to take Maryland in a new direction.